2020 Network Monitoring Buyer's Guide
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2020 NETWORK MONITORING BUYER’S GUIDE 1 NETWORK MONITORING BUYER’S GUIDE MARKET OVERVIEW The network is perhaps the most essential technology of the modern business. For just about every company, networks are the core technology that allows it to operate efficiently, promote collaboration amongst its staff, and communicate with clients. As such, companies need to ensure that their network is running smoothly at all times. That’s why continuously observing your network for performance problems is a critical aspect of maintaining a business network. Businesses rely on their network to perform at certain levels to satisfy the demands of executives and clients. Unfortunately, network performance issues are all too common, and they can put a strain on your company. Your company needs to be prepared to deal with an unexpected performance problem and fix it before it causes too much stress. Performance issues and network outages are not just infuriating to deal with; they can also be incredibly costly to your company. NetRounds’ September 2019 report The Hidden Cost of Network Brownouts revealed that companies lose $600,000 a year on average due to network performance problems. The survey also showed that network brownouts (or sudden drops in quality) are causing damage to 83% of large companies, with many employees citing frustration with the dips in network performance. How can a business deal with network performance problems, though? Enterprise networks are constantly growing in complexity, adding new devices and new kinds of hardware as Internet of Things (IoT) deployments become more popular. It’s also difficult to predict what performance issues are likely to happen (and where they’re coming from) until it’s too late. In 2020, businesses cannot subside on a reactive approach to problem solving if they expect to maintain solid network performance. Your users will most likely discover a major network performance issue on its own eventually, but it could take a long time to fix the issue after it’s discovered. Instead, a company must enable a proactive defense infrastructure that actively searches for problems and alerts administrators to a potential performance-alerting issue before it even occurs. To ease the burden on network administrators and engineers, companies need to consider deploying a network performance monitoring solution. For companies of all sizes, a network monitoring solution allows you to proactively deal with performance problems and gain valuable insights into how your network is functioning. However, as monitoring solutions become more integrated, adding services beyond network monitoring, it can be challenging to know which tool is right for your company. That’s where this Buyer’s Guide comes in. We’ve detailed the top network performance monitoring vendors with individual profiles, key features, and capability references. The editors at Solutions Review cut through the rhetoric to provide an unbiased rundown of these unique vendors. Additionally, we provide the Bottom Line: our take on what makes the featured vendors unique, distinctive, or exceptional. This guide serves as a solid resource to have on hand while your enterprise is evaluating monitoring solutions for your business network. Daniel Hein, Editor © 2020 | Solutions Review | 500 West Cummings Park | Woburn, Massachusetts 01801 | USA 2 NETWORK MONITORING BUYER’S GUIDE 5 Questions You Should Ask When Evaluating A Network Monitoring Solution Does my business have a network performance goal? Successful network performance isn’t a “one size fits all” deal; every business will have different goals regarding network performance. Defining a network performance goal allows your company to know how they should approach performance monitoring, which will help your business evaluate potential solutions. This goal should not be set in stone forever; it should change periodically to reflect new performance trends or address common problems. Are you using too many monitoring tools already? One of the major issues with using many different monitoring tools is that it’s often very difficult to keep them in sync. Multiple monitoring tools also means that you must install, configure and support every tool individually. By employing so many tools, your network teams are spending more time troubleshooting and less time working on other more pressing issues. Many companies are releasing unified monitoring tools that combine different solutions, helping to mitigate this issue. Is it difficult to collaborate between IT teams and other departments? When network performance drops, IT teams tend to claim innocence by sticking to their respective departments and tossing blame to others. With full network visibility gained from a network monitoring solution that delivers intelligent insights into the root causes of problems, IT teams are given a more defined focus to work with. This allows them to promote a more collaborative environment, letting both the IT team and other departments work in harmony. Is your organization having problems troubleshooting network issues? It’s easy enough to realize that something’s wrong with your network. However, it can be a struggle to discover what the problem actually is. Network monitoring solutions simplify the detection and remediation of network issues by offering visual displays of devices, flows, and packets. Most solutions also give users the ability to click on a particular device and see critical performance data, like availability, packet loss, response time, error rates, and more. Is your organization concerned about network security? A network monitoring solution provides the invaluable benefit of added network security. If a network monitoring solution reports a sudden increase in CPU usage or if network traffic metrics take a significant deviation from the norm, this information could quickly alert IT staff of a possible malware or phishing attack. Network monitoring software can easily be situated next to any of an organization’s existing security solutions to provide a holistic view of network security. © 2020 | Solutions Review | 500 West Cummings Park | Woburn, Massachusetts 01801 | USA 3 NETWORK MONITORING BUYER’S GUIDE 5 Questions You Should Ask Your Potential Network Monitoring Solution Provider How easy is it to deploy your network monitoring solution? A quality network monitoring tool won’t require that users go through an arduous process to get the tool up and running. If the product you’re considering requires numerous tutorials or additional servers to be purchased, or if the features you need seem missing or non-essential, you may want to keep looking. Also, if it looks like purchasing a monitoring tool will drain too many vital resources from your organization, you should probably consider another solution. Does your network monitoring solution deliver intelligent alerts? One of the most critical (and sometimes underappreciated) features of network monitoring solutions is alerting your company to a performance issue. At the basic level, a monitoring tool needs to deliver insights about a problem — what it is, where it’s located, when it started, etc. Other capabilities to consider include tiered alerts that sort issues by how critical they are, and timed alerts to only allow alerts to come through during the hours when someone can respond to them. How does pricing work for your network monitoring solution? An obvious one, but also something that plenty of organizations overlook; a network monitoring solution’s total cost is a major factor in selecting a solution. Many network monitoring vendors offer pricing tiers that allow for a certain number of monitored devices. You should, however, make sure that cost isn’t the only consideration; while a solution’s price may give you a good idea of how effective it is, it’s not always a perfect indicator. Does your network monitoring solution offer remote access? This is a feature that should come included on all modern network monitoring solutions. If your office isn’t centralized in one location, a web-based network performance monitoring and management solution is absolutely essential. When your network administrators and engineers can access their network monitoring tool remotely, they’ll be able to discover, address, and potentially solve performance problems regardless of whether or not they’re in the office. How flexible and scalable is your network monitoring solution? Networks are not a static infrastructure; they’re rapidly changing as new devices connect to the network and businesses extend their reach. If your organization is expanding its network, a flexible and scalable network monitoring tool is essential. A scalable solution will allow your network monitoring tool to grow as your business does. With a flexible network monitoring tool, you can disable device monitoring on the network you don’t need to look at. © 2020 | Solutions Review | 500 West Cummings Park | Woburn, Massachusetts 01801 | USA 4 NETWORK MONITORING BUYER’S GUIDE Solution Provider Profiles 7 ....................................................................................... Accedian 8 ....................................................................................... AppNeta 9 ....................................................................................... Broadcom 10 ..................................................................................... Catchpoint 11 ..................................................................................... Cisco 12 ....................................................................................